From the Daily Life of Alexander Graham Bell

cristi (70)in #personalities • 8 years ago

When Orison Swett first visited Graham Bell it was 11 A.M. and Bell was still in bed. For those of you who don't know, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Most sources describe him wearing more than one hat: engineer, inventor, and scientist. Bell lived between 1847 and 1922 (died age 75).

Aside of the telephone, Bell was a serial inventor with remarkable works in medical research, aeronautics, hydrofoils, and telecommunications - to name a few.

My sole focus with this post is to get into the daily habits of Alex G. Bell. If you want to know more about him and other aspects of his life, I'd recommend starting here and working your way from there.

Previous posts in the series of daily habits:

1. A day in the Life of Nikola Tesla

2. A day in the Life of Benjamin Franklin

3. A day in the Life of Thomas Edison

4. A day in the Life of Albert Einstein

5. A day in the Life of Charles Darwin

6. A day in the Life of John D. Rockefeller

The Daily Habits of Alexander Graham Bell

I have not found the hour-by-hour activities/routines of Graham Bell like I did with the rest of the personalities I talked about previously. There is little information on this. However, we do know the trends that use to make Bell's usual day.

Here's what he told Orison Swett when being asked about a good time for a discussion:

"Come any time, if it is only late. I begin my work at about nine or ten o'clock in the evening, and continue until four or five in the morning. Night is a more quiet time to work. It aids thought."

Overall, he slept little. He would often be forced out of bed by his wife Mabel to have breakfast at 8:30 in the morning.

You could see the voraciousness of his inclination towards work, or I should say doing what he enjoyed most, by his pledge to his family to eliminate distractions. According to Mason Currey:

"When in the throes of a new idea, he pleaded with his wife to let him be free of family obligations; sometimes, in these states, he would work for up to twenty-two hours straight without sleep."

Even though Mabel accepted most of his untamed drive towards work, she was a human and she was his wife afterall. In one letter from 1888 she wrote to him:

"I wonder do you think of me in the midst of that work of yours of which I am so proud and yet so jealous, for I know it has stolen from me part of my husband’s heart, for where his thoughts and interests lie, there must his heart be."

It appears to me that there is no trend for a normal/regular routine in the life of Alexander G. Bell. I mean, how could it tend to a normal existence with usual sleep hours, curfew, and leisure time, when he dedicated so much of his time to his work?

We have seen that, to a certain extent, in the life of Charles Darwin as well...

Interesting to Note

Bell had three citizenships: British, Canadian, and American.
he spend most of his time in his two houses: one in Cambridge, Ma and another one in Washington. He fitted these residencies conveniently to help him with his inventions.
Mabel, his wife, and Eliza, his mother, were both hearing impaired. This has been considered one of the main drivers of Bell's work.
he was a believer in practical perseverance. According to Orison Swett:

"Perseverance is the chief; but perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot."

I particularly like his approach to reading and self-education - probably because I'm following a similar one?! Here's part of his discussion with Orison Swett:

A.G.B.: "On the contrary, I did not begin real study until I was over sixteen. Until that time, my principal study was-reading novels."
O.S.: He laughed heartily at my evident astonishment
A.G.B.: "They did not help me in the least, for they did not give me an insight into real life. It is only those things that give one a grasp of practical affairs that are helpful. To read novels continuously is like reading fairy stories or " Arabian Nights" tales. It is a butterfly existence, so long as it lasts; but, some day, one is called to stern reality, unprepared. "

It's not that I do not find value in novels and fiction writing. On the contrary, I think it's a good way to spend leisure time. But for me, I need to read something that I can immediately apply in some way or another. I need factual data, I need information without the hype or metaphor...

Ending Thoughts

One of my favorite lines from Alexander G. Bell involves, of course, self-education:

"Self-education is a lifelong affair. There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things."

I'll end by leaving you with a 2-minute biographical video of Graham Bell: